Water Marble!

My own nails are far too short right now to pull off a proper water marble, and since I can't do traditional acrylic extensions right now with my pregnancy, I decided to make a set of falsies to wear.

I do this from time to time and I can actually get some decent wear time out of them if I'm careful. :)

These are quite a bit longer than I'm used to, but I'll see how long I can handle them before I need to file them down. So far so good!

I started with a white base on the nails. For this, I used China Glaze White on White. Just one coat, which I let dry most of the way. For the marble, I alternated Rimmel Posh Pink, OPI Rumple's Wiggin & Butter London Slapper. Slapper wanted to spread out a lot, so I had to be careful with it. First few tries weren't great (I have those on my right hand, lol) but they weren't bad. Once I mastered the swirl, oh man...

I'm officially in love with doing water marble now. *__* I finished these off with a coat of Model's Own Indian Ocean (pictured) which really made them pop. I love this polish so very much. 

One of the biggest tips I can give those who want to do water marble is this: use hot/warm water and clean the water once every few nails with clear polish. I also dumped my water after five nails and started over. Living in Florida and not having a water softener, I have fairly mineral water so I also had to wait for it to settle just a bit before I began (the few little spots are from trying to early). 

I plan on doing a set of water marble with art for St. Paddy's Day, so stay tuned for that! I'm also going to start selling these on my Etsy when I get the supplies I need. :)

NOTD: Valentine's Grunge

Valentine's Grunge Nails - I apologize for the poor lighting, we're having a very dreary day. :(

Both the hubby and I have to work today (and he's currently getting his ass handed to him, poor thing - stop calling 911 on Valentine's Day, people! ):) so my Valentine's Day will be fairly lackluster, I'm sure. Oh well, I decided to paint my nails for it anyway.

I started with a base of China Glaze White on White, two coats, followed by sponging on dark pink and red acrylic paint. Once the paints were dry, I took a wet make up sponge, dabbed it on the nails and then used the dry side to 'erase' bits off. My white acrylic paint bit the dust the other day (don't switch your white and black lids people...it ends in disaster) and I've yet to find time to replace it. I had to use my nail art pens which...meh, they did what they needed to. I didn't want it to be perfect, so I suppose that was probably better. After the hearts had dried some (but not all the way), I took a makeup sponge again and dabbed just a little bit of the pink over the art. This picked up some of the black and speckled it as well.

I will definitely be using the 'eraser' technique in future manis. It only works with the acrylic paint, since it's water soluble, but it does give a really cool effect. :3

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

NOTD: Mystery Polka

Julep Mystery Color topped with OPI Polka.com

Well, my Gelish gels didn't last. :( They're a little TOO easily soaked off and just one day of work had them popping off. :/ So back to little nails I go!

It's also probably better now that I've gotten a position at a local medical training institute as a student services coordinator. Typing + long nails = disaster. I'm going to part-time at the salon, though, so I'll still be there. :)

This mani is done with the blue Julep mystery color I picked up in the Secret Store a few weeks ago. It's a very pretty blue/teal frost. I really wish it had a name, lol. I also picked up OPI Polka.com last week and wanted to try it out so very badly. So, voila, this mani! Very festive for the state fair tomorrow, don't you think?

NOTD: Valentine's Day Part 1

Ended up without a babysitter so work had to be cancelled for today, but I stopped by to give my boss her birthday card and pick up some of my art supplies to do my art on the manicure I posted earlier!

I wanted to do something a little special because when I post to tumblr, it will be my 100th post on that blog.

Unfortunately, my white pen decided to give me a bit of shit, so I'm not 100% happy with the thumb, but I can deal for now. I also lost the awesome sun I had this morning as a cold front is moving in, so bleh. Pictures turned out fairly well, though.

Used a stamp for the lips because, really, how awesome is that stamp?!!!

This is just the first set of nail art that I have planned for Valentine's Day. Since my husband has to work day of, we're going to celebrate with a family trip to the State Fair on Wednesday and I want to do something EPIC. I've got a batch of water decals coming my way that I hope are here for that. *___*

PS: I did a bit of tweaking to the layout here and have a new one up. I am also now on twitter! Follow me? I'll be posting little tidbits and such and lots of pictures of nail finds! :)

NOTD: Pink Oscar

Julep Oscar accent nail with Revlon Pink Lingerie

I picked up Oscar as an add-on to my February box and I've been dying to try it out. I'm a sucker for glitters, but I didn't want to do an entire glitter mani. Everyone is doing some sort of Super Bowl theme today but seeing as I couldn't care less about either team, I went for this instead. XD Sadly my Freedom Top Coat is at work and I had to use China Glaze Fast Forward (still an awesome topcoat) but I've already smudged my middle finger. :/ Oh well.